The 15-Minute Meal and other Urban Legends

I love when I am standing in the check-out line at the supermarket scanning the women’s magazines and I see that common headline “From Preparation to Table – 15-Minute Meals!” I admit I usually fall for it and throw the magazine in my cart. After all, if we don’t have hope, what do we have?

To be fair, I didn’t count the shopping time needed for buying all the ingredients for the fabulously fast meal I was going to try cooking. I set the timer for 15 minutes right when I began preparing the meal. (Hey, I bought the magazine on the promise that they were going to make my life easier with these splendidly speedy meals. Darned right I’m going to time them.)

They don’t tell you that you need to be a ninja food-chopper using a knife that can split a hair in mid-air.

Since I wasn’t the former and didn’t own the latter, nine minutes had passed by the time I was done preparing the food for cooking. Since the entire dinner cooked conveniently in one pan for a practically effortless dinner experience (not my words), I scooped everything up and put it in the pan, then stirred as I cast furtive glances toward the timer. Read more